Traffic on a 21-kilometre stretch on the highway to northern Bangladesh has almost come to a standstill, causing much suffering to those heading home for the Eid holidays.
Published : 24 Jun 2017, 12:34 PM
The vehicles are moving at a snail’s pace from Bangabandhu Bridge to Sirajganj’s Hatikumrul. Police blamed a fragile bridge in the middle for the tailback.
The 21-kilometre stretch of the road from Bangabandhu Bridge to Hatikumrul only has two lanes, Hatikumrul Highway Police’s Sergeant Abdul Gani told bdnews24.com.
“Vehicles going to Rajshahi and Rangpur divisions and to districts in Khulna are on this road. Their numbers have increased due to the Eid rush and that has led to the slow pace,” he said.
There was no road divider on this road in some places , one or two drivers would enter the wrong lane to get ahead wrongfully and that creates problems. he said.
Despite his claims, it was found that buses which left Dhaka for either Bogra or Naogaon at 10am or 10:30am on Friday arrived at their destination on Saturday morning.
Due to the terrible traffic situation, a Shyamali Paribahan bus that left Kalyanpur Bus Stand at 10:30am Friday took 21 hours to get Bogra and arrived around 7am Saturday, instead of the normal five hours.
However, police and many transport operators have also blamed Nalka Bridge as one of the reasons for the dreadfully slow traffic movement on this road.
Bangabandhu Bridge West Police Station OC Md Daud said the number of vehicles had quadrupled and they had to go very slowly when crossing the old and fragile Nalka Bridge.
Tangail’s Superintendent of Police Md Mahbub Alam said the slow pace on the west bank of Bangabandhu Bridge has also influenced the traffic at Tangail, but there was no major gridlock.
He said there were minor accidents at six places on the highway, but no major crisis occurred as they handled the situations quickly.
Gazipur’s transport workers also held the Nalka Bridge responsible for the slow pace.
Prashanta Kumar Roy, manager of the Shyamali Paribahan counter at Bhogra’s Bypass area, said their buses’ departures were delayed as the vehicles were not arriving on time due to the bad traffic situation in Sirajganj.
“That’s why we have stopped selling advance tickets,” he added.
One of their buses which left Panchagarh on Friday evening arrived at Bhogra at 9:30am Saturday, taking three hours more than normal travel time.
Buses returning from the north were getting delayed because of the traffic until Tangail’s Elenga, said Tanjila Travels counter manager Ibrahim at Bhogra.